With the recent rapid development of the information industry, various information processing systems have been developed, and recording methods and apparatuses suitable for each information processing system have been developed and implemented. In a heat-sensitive recording method, which is one of the above described recording systems, the apparatus used for practising the heat-sensitive recording method is light, small and noiseless, operation and maintenance of the apparatus are easy and color prints can easily be obtained. Therefore, the above heat-sensitive transfer recording method has gained widespread acceptance. This heat-sensitive transfer recording method is largely classified into two methods. The first is a method which comprises heating heat-fusible ink coated on a support from the support side to cause the ink to melt according to the patterns of image signals, and transferring the ink melted onto a heat transfer dye-receiving sheet to produce a hard copy. The second is a method which comprises heating heat transfer materials composed of resins having a high softening point and a sublimable dye coated on a support from the support side, subliming the sublimable dye according to the patterns made by image signals, and transferring the dye onto a heat transfer dye-receiving sheet to produce a hard copy.
However if the transferred dye does not firmly adhere on a dye-receiving layer, undesirable phenomenon occurs that the dye is incompletely transferred to the dye-receiving sheet.
If resins used in the dye-receiving layer of the heat transfer dye-receiving sheet are not proper, durability of images is not good.
Heretofore, various approaches have been made to more completely transfer a dye to a dye-receiving sheet and to improve durability of images, but a satisfactory approach has not yet been found.